The Mercenary Mediterranean_ Sovereignty, Religion, and Violence in the Medieval Crown of Aragon - Hussein Fancy

38 chapter one

soldiers or, more precisely, the style of riding associated with them has only

further obscured their history and allowed them to hide in plain sight. In

these paper records, the word jenet has become unremarkable, trivia for

hippologists. Arabic sources speak of the Ghuzāh, one of many waves of

holy warriors, Islamic heroes who crashed upon the shores of al- Andalus.

But the Aragonese jenets and the Marīnid Ghuzāh never clearly meet.

A careful comparison of all these sources does reveal that they, the jenets

and the Ghuzāh, were one and the same soldiers. As Arabic names enter

into Romance sources, they are often mangled and misshapen beyond rec-

ognition. Letters are transposed, dropped, or changed as a scribe strains to

make sense of what he has heard. But occasionally and particularly in the

case of prominent figures, their names can be reconstructed. Across the

thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, in missions to recruit jenets, contracts

for service, and records of employment, some familiar- sounding names

appear in the Crown’s archive. For instance, one reads: Iça Abenadriz,

Muça Abenrohh, Alabes Abarraho, Iyca Abenrraho, Baratdin Abarraho,

Greneladim Abarraho, and Hali Ebemuca Abenrraho among others.^128

In Arabic sources, one finds: ‘Isā b. Idrīs, Mūsa b. Raḥḥū, al- ‘Abbās b.

Raḥḥū, ‘Īsā b. Raḥḥū, Badr al- Dīn [b. Mūsā.] b. Raḥḥū, Jamāl al- Dīn [b.

Mūsā] b. Raḥḥū, and ‘Alī b. Mūsā b. Raḥḥū, among others. These men were

members of the Marīnid royal family, relatives and descendants of the

three Marīnid princes, exiled to al- Andalus, who were the founders of al-

Ghuzāh al- Mujāhidūn.^129 Some of these men would command the Ghuzāh,

and some would also command the Aragonese jenets. These names tell us

without a doubt that the Ghuzāh were also members of the jenets.

This realization presents a new challenge. How and why did the Ara-

gonese kings turn to the Ghuzāh, men who as late as 1284 were invading

its lands and would continue to invade it, to serve in their armies and

more strikingly, as their personal protectors? Why would the Ghuzāh

seemingly abandon their cause? What bound these Christian kings to

Muslim holy warriors over the period of a century?